In general, in an automatic transmission mounted in a vehicle or the like, the structure is provided with a planetary gear unit in which two lines of planetary gears are connected, and a planetary gear which can selectively output a reduced rotation obtained by reducing a rotation of an input shaft (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publications Nos. 4-125345 and 2000-274498). The art described in these documents achieves, for example, six forward speeds and one backward speed by selectively inputting the reduced rotation from the planetary gear via a clutch to one rotation element in the planetary gear unit having, for example, four rotation elements.
Note that, the automatic transmission described above is provided with a plurality of clutches for inputting the rotation of the input shaft to the rotation elements in the planetary gear unit and the rotation elements in the planetary gear. However, depending on the arrangement of the plurality of clutches, there is a case when a member that transmits the reduced rotation of the planetary gear to the rotation elements in the planetary gear unit must be made longer in an axial direction. Further, in particular, in an automatic transmission used in a FF (front engine and front drive) vehicle, or the like, an automatic transmission is used that has a gear for outputting an output rotation of the automatic transmission to another parallel shaft, a so-called counter gear, that is provided for a driven wheel. In the case that the counter gear is arranged at the same manner between the planetary gear unit and the planetary gear, the member that transmits the reduced rotation has to be made longer in an axial direction depending on the arrangement of the counter gear.